Teens not the trouble, system is

Bridjo Cobbs' doorbell rang at 10:30 Saturday night. It was her son's friend, claiming he wanted to use the phone. In reality, though — and not for the first time — he wanted a place to crash.

The teen is 15, a student and talented athlete at Doherty High. His parents died when he was young, and he's bounced around from foster homes to group homes throughout Worcester County. The day before he rang Cobbs' doorbell, he had bolted from his latest residence, the Sybil H. Flagg Children's Center in Boylston.

"He's not a bad kid," Cobbs said. "But like any teenager, when you impose rules he tends to get angry. He bristles at rules... He's quiet and reserved. In my presence he's always respectful. He's a normal teenager."

It was cold outside and Cobbs invited him in. She asked why he keeps leaving the homes, and the boy offered various vague complaints, such as his social worker never returning his calls. On this night, he said he had planned to stay at a friend's house, but the friend got grounded.

"I know he's not blameless in all of this because he did run away," Cobbs said. "But he's only 15, and he's a ward of the state."

After more conversation, the teen agreed that Cobbs could call his group home. So she contacted the Flagg Children's Center, told a staffer that the teen was at her house and asked that someone come and get him.

Instead, she was told that she needed to call Worcester police, because the youth was the subject of an arrest warrant for running away from the group home.

So she called police, and two officers showed up. They ran a check on the teenager and found no warrant. Instead, they told her, they found a missing person report from a Framingham home he had lived in three months before.

Obviously, though, he wasn't missing from the Framingham home; he had been placed in a different program. And there was no arrest warrant for the boy.

"This is not the first time this has happened, and it angers me," Cobbs said. "They only say these kids have warrants because the program doesn't want to pick them up. So the kids either find another place to stay for the night, or it's up to the police to arrange transportation. But these folks are supposed to be caring for these children. It's their job. They are getting paid to care for them."

The Flagg Children's Center is run by YOU Inc. and serves adolescent boys. Monday, several calls and messages to Program Director Gene Sims weren't returned, nor was a message returned from YOU Inc.

Cobbs said the police officers took the youth with them Saturday night and she assumed he was returned to the center. She understands that caring for young people at risk is a difficult job and she doesn't know the full story. But she noted that the boy had been missing since the afternoon before and she questioned why staff wouldn't be eager to collect him.

"If I were to leave my child outside with no place to go, these same people would be at my door, arresting me and taking my child away from me for neglect," she said.

She said the teenager stayed at a different friend's house last month, and that friend's mom received the same response from the center when she asked for someone to come get him.

"I know our system is broken and there's no easy solution," Cobbs said. "But they shouldn't be giving up on a boy like this. This needs to be looked into. How can we blame a child for running from a program when it is clear that they don't care?"

She added, "This could be my son. He could be anyone's son. How do you not get involved? How do you literally leave a child out in the cold?"